Stop Buying Vitamins and Just Get a Massage!

RITA REDBERG: I do not recommend vitamin supplements for healthy people, because repeated randomized controlled trials show that they offer NO health benefits.

In fact, one large observational study with 19 year follow up published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2011 found a 6% increased mortality in women who take multivitamins. In any event, there is no reason to take these vitamin pills every day (or ever) when there are no health benefits associated with their use. If you want to improve your health through things you put in your mouth, eat some fruits and vegetables and avoid processed food–ample studies show these simple guidelines are strongly associated with less heart disease, less cancer, and longer life. None of these benefits come from vitamin supplements.

Indeed, many people who take vitamins are already healthy from eating well, engaging in regular physical activity and avoiding smoking; the ones who are not will receive no benefit from a pill. Moreover, vitamin pills can be insidious by providing the false assurance that taking a vitamin or 2 (or 10) somehow will make up for that fast-food burger. But it will not. And the supplements are remarkably expensive; we spend over $20 billion annually on dietary supplements. Stop buying vitamin supplements, and take the money you save each month and do something that truly will improve how you feel–get a massage!

Dr. Rita Redberg (@RFRedberg) is a professor of medicine and a cardiologist at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.